Nightmares
by Neutral Confusion
Summary: Originally for the Kink Meme. Prompt was "A child is afraid of the monster in their closet.  Kristoph is afraid of the monster in his hand." EDITED for spelling and grammar fails.


If Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice or any other game in the AA series belonged to me, WrightWorthy, KlaviPollo and FrAdrian would be EXPLICIT CANON!

FANFIC STARTS HERE!

Kristoph Gavin, in his solitary confinement cell, stared at his reflection in the mirror after hearing that he would testify once more. He was wearing his usual suit, glasses in place, hair positioned in front of his left shoulder, and the not-quite-real smile to complete the look.

As he rose his right hand to adjust the light reflecting on his glasses, he became aware of the stitches prominent there. A shiver ran down Kristoph's spine as he looked at the imperfection made by a knife his mother had thrown at him during one of her many drinking sessions.

_The stench of alcohol was thick in the air. The 15 year old Kristoph Gavin bit his lip as he looked around the kitchen, taking in the broken bottles of grape juice and alcohol, and his mother slumped over the kitchen counter. _

_He approached her, unaware of the knife in her right hand. Sighing, he began to remove the bottle of whiskey from the grip of her left when she jerked up and slashed at him with surprising speed for a fat, drunken woman. _

_Kristoph had been quick to step back from the moment she started, but he didn't move fast enough. The blade deeply cut into a part of the back of his hand, quickly drawing blood. _

_The slash itself didn't hurt much, but because it was dripping with alcohol, the stinging was unbearable. He hadn't known pain as much as that, so he screamed his lungs out, clutching his hand, trying not to get angry at his mom, fearing what else she might do to him._

_His mother, realizing her actions, stumbled until her hand clamped on Kristoph's mouth, effectively silencing him. She was oddly silent, though Kristoph, through the mirror nearby, saw her face transform from anger to terror and worry. _

_Taking his injured hand, she looked into his eyes and tried her best to comfort him and think clearly in her drunken state. _

_She ran into her room when he quieted down, and returned with a needle, a bottle of sterilizing alocohol, a bunch of cotton balls and some nylon string._

_After wiping away most of the blood, she quickly sterilized the needle and threaded the nylon through it. Then, making sure that Kristoph's screams don't wake anyone, she proceeded to sew up the wound to the best of her abilities. However, this wasn't easy as she was intoxicated, making her hands quite unstable._

_Kristoph stayed in his room when the ordeal was over, staring at the sloppy sewing job that would mark his hand forever. As the pain registered, his hand tensed, revealing a demon. _

_There was nothing he could do but scream. _

_He could not look at his hand for days. It took him months to resume normal activity, but still the image of the demon on his hand made his blood run cold. Even as he grew up, the image tormented him in his days and in his dreams. Even as he developed the smile he wore all the time, the demon's own smile was there, mocking him, reminding him that he was nothing when faced with the appendage people called his battle scar. _

_It's no battle scar. It's the one of the very few things that Kristoph Gavin hated and feared to no end._

Kristoph Gavin's hand automatically tensed at the memory, his eyesdarting to the reflection of the body part on reflex, his brain hastily preparing for the picture to form.

But there was no scar. There was no face. There was no demon. There was no picture.

Creasing his forehead, he adjusted his glasses once more, then looked directly at the hand.

Still nothing.

Something inside Kristoph Gavin jumped for joy at the thought of no more torment. Outwardly, he smiled – _truly_ smiled – relieved that he was finally free of the demon which had followed him for the longest time, the demon he never got rid off.

As he looked back at the mirror to re-adjust his spectacles (a form of celebration, he caught a glimpse of a floating entity behind him which wasn't there when he first looked. He frowned, thinking that it must have been his imagination – the prison wasn't known for keeping people sane. Kristoph closed his eyes and counted to ten – the technique he always used when aggravated, scared, or tired. As his eyelids fluttered open, he still saw the hovering... thing.

Kristoph whirled around to check, only to come face to face with... a face?

Not just any face. It was all too familiar. It was terrifying. It was the face that kept him awake for nights and kept him wary for days. It was the face in his nightmares; both when he was awake and asleep.

The face of the demon on his hand was there. The eyes made usually made by the pressure on his hand was there, as was the mouth of those cursed stitches which had brought him pain for the longest he could remember. It was there floating, staring, mocking, scaring Kristoph to no end.

The usually cool, calm and collected man visibly paled and began to sweat bullets. The smile he insisted on wearing turned became agape with terror. His lip trembled as he stepped back, his back hitting the vanity.

_Impossible, _he thought, his left hand immediately darting to his mouth, as if to stop any screams that could escape. His right hand went behind him, as it was the last thing he wanted to see lest the demon be there too. _This is completely impossible. It can't be there. It can't be in front of me. It should at the back of my hand where I can ignore and forget about it._

The demon laughed. As it did, the stitches which made up the mouth tore and Kristoph felt pain like no other. He looked down, searching for the cause of the pain he had only felt once before, and brought out his right hand, finding it paler than his face, with a deep, wide, open and bloody wound moving to the demon's sounds of pleasure at his plight. The laugh itself was terrifying. It was cold, deep, dark and heartless – exactly how he dreamt it would sound when he was much younger.

"You never could forget and ignore me, Kristoph Gavin." it said in its voice that struck fear in Kristoph's blackened heart. "I'm here to remind you of just that."

_No. No. No. No. NO. NO! _His legs, unable to handle the weight he suddenly felt crumpled, and he sank to the floor hugging his knees. His eyes were wide open, staring at a non-descript speck on the prison floor, his hands covering his ears – though it wasn't helping much. He could still hear the demon laugh away as clear as day. Shaking his head, Kristoph couldn't think of any other explanation for this phantasm except -

"This is a dream." he said with more courage than he was feeling. The demon stopped its maddening laughter to look at the former defense attorney. Its eyes – or what Kristoph called its eyes – bore into him, intimidating but not stopping him, not yet.

Kristoph stood up supported by the vanity, using all the strength he had. "You're a dream. You're a child's nightmare. I'm no child, demon." He trembled at his words but he was feeling slightly braver than he had ever been when facing the entity.

"I'm going to turn away. I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten. When I open them and look back here, you won't exist and I'll wake up." Kristoph announced. The floating face stared on, maddeningly still, as if daring Kristoph to put it into action.

He turned around and faced the mirror. As he stole a glance at the hovering demon, Kristoph had to control the shudder threatening to give his terror away to the one of the few things he had ever feared. Closing his eyes and clenching his fists, he slowly counted.

"1.." Nothing stirred in the room.

"2.." It was as if his voice were to the only thing present.

"3.." To the passerby, the counting voice would have been eerie.

"4.." But to the demon, it was as if amused.

"5.." Kristoph felt a light wind blowing.

"6.." This had to be a dream.

"7.." There were no window in his cell.

"8.." The wind got stronger.

"9.." The room began to shake.

"10.." Then all was still.

Kristoph Gavin didn't open his eyes immediately. Oh no, he was ensuring the disapperance of the demon. Slowly, he turned around, and opened his eyes...

… and saw nothing. He let out the breath he didn't know was holding. He unclenched his fists. Instinctively, he looked at his right hand, which was still stinging for some reason.

The wound was gone. The face was gone.

The wind blew.

There was the maddening, piercing, demonic laughter again. Kristoph screamed at the pain he felt. Looking down, the wound that he belived closed was there once more, not on one, but both hands, moving and laughing. Kristoph looked up, and there the demon was, driving him mad with fear. It wasn't just a floating face anymore. While he was counting it seemed to have acquired a head and body from the non-existent dust in the cell. He froze.

"Why are you still here?" he said in a small voice that he hardly ever used, his eyes wide with evidence of pain, fear and disbelief. "You're a dream. I'm supposed to wake up. I'm not supposed to be afraid of you..."

"You can't get rid of me Kristoph." said the demon, its low and commanding voice making Kristoph's brain fail to make anymore rational decisions. "I'll be here forever."

The demon approached him, dust arm extended and mouth of stitches opened as if to devour the man.

There was nothing Kristoph could do but scream. It was all too slow. He was going to be killed by something that wasn't supposed to exist. He was going to die by the hands of a nightmare.

Kristoph Gavin quickly sat up from the couch in his cell, panting, drenched in sweat, the demon's laughter still ringing in his ears. He quickly looked around, his face still etched with terror. When he saw no dust being with the face of his wound, he glanced at his right hand.

Nothing changed. The stitches were there. He tensed them, and flinched as the demon showed its face to him.

Still panting, he got up and changed into his usual suit, fixed his hair and his glasses. He kept looking at the back of his right hand. He tensed up everytime he saw the stitches and flinched everytime the demon appeared.

That was the day he was brought in to testify for the trial of Vera Misham. That was the day the demon in his hand gave him away. That was the day Apollo Justice got him for the second time. That was the day Phoenix Wright caught him in a trap he worked on for 7 years.

That day, when he laughed manically, the laughter he let out was the same laughter that the demon gave.

The demon on his right hand, given by an accident, had caught Kristoph Gavin. There was nothing he could do about it any longer.

END.

Reviews please? :3


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